Apple iPhone 15 Pro: New Leak Reveals Awesome Updates In Definitive Report

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max. What will the iPhone 15 bring?

July 31 update below. This post was first published on July 30, 2023.

It’s almost certainly less than two months until Apple unveils its latest iPhones, the iPhone 15 series—here’s exactly when it will be announced and go on sale. Today, though, a new report gives chapter and verse on what will be revealed, leaving almost nothing hidden for Apple to announce.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, the next iPhone’s features, design and price are all now pretty much set in stone and it’s all over bar the keynote.

That’s not to say that all of it is new news: Forbes’ Gordon Kelly has already reported on plenty of the features Gurman describes. But there are new details or refinements to what we’d heard before. Here are the key details, in the gospel according to Gurman.

Among the onslaught of information from Gurman yesterday, even if some of it focused on confirming previous rumors, was the exciting news that titanium is coming to the iPhone.

Remember that the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max will come in several colors, and you can bet that Apple will be ensuring the titanium bands will be color-matched. So, a regular titanium band would be on the silver iPhone 15 Pro, if that’s what it’s called. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple tints the titanium gold, if that colorway is there.

But in the last few hours, reliable leaker Unknownz21 has added to what we think we know about the new material for the next Pro models. They have been telling us that titanium is coming for at least four months, but now they have confirmed strikingly specific details. They have said that it will be “Grade 5 Titanium (Ti-6Al-4V), Aluminum (Al 6013 T6),” and have now doubled down on this, saying, “I thought it’d be fun to share something specific, as opposed to vague rumors about the material.” I’m not sure if this is a dig at other leakers, but even if it is, you can’t deny this is amazingly precise.

This leaker is also known for their no-nonsense attitude and has just tweeted, “Everyone in shock over thin bezels. Like ok, what’s so revolutionary about that?” And here I disagree, thinner bezels will make a big visual difference. Remember the first all-screen Android phones where the display sat towards the top and there was a noticeable chin at the base? The introduction of the iPhone X really changed things for the better. I think the new bezels could do the same and it could be déjà vu all over again, as they say.

Oh, and it looks like we could see more titanium than just on the iPhone: the next Apple Watch Ultra could come in another shade. More on that here.

Finally, I wasn’t entirely comprehensive in my list of new leaks from Mark Gurman. To be honest, there was a lot, and some of it was assumed to be common knowledge. However, for completists, Gurman also talked about these things: the super-thin bezels predicted for the iPhone which are made possible by the low-injection pressure over-molding process (LIPO) will one day be coming to the iPad as well. He says it’ll be the biggest upgrade to the iPhone since 5G was added in the iPhone 12. I didn’t mention, because I figure everybody has heard this, that the entire range will switch from Lightning to a USB-C socket on the base. The Pro phones will continue to have frosted glass for the back of the handset, but the edges will be less sharp. This is arguably the biggest design change but, again, widely publicized already. And the cameras will get updated lenses and “a wider range of optical zoom on the largest model.”

Oh, and the solid-state buttons thought to replace the power and volume buttons, but abandoned because of cost increase, were part of a project called Bongo. I love that.

Gurman says that Apple takes another step towards an all-screen phone with this year’s models. The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus will introduce the Dynamic Island currently restricted to the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. And the Pro models released this year will have even thinner bezels. Gordon Kelly covered this just this week, but Gurman has even better news. While a previous report said the bezels would be only 1.55mm thick, which is world-beating already, Gurman stipulates a thickness of 1.5mm. Sure, 0.05mm is a difference that’s hard to spot, but every little helps.

When Apple released the iPhone X, Apple’s Craig Fedrighi told me that the full-screen display is what they’d wanted from day one of the iPhone. This new phone brings it a big step closer.

The Pro phones this year will have Low-Injection Pressure Over-Molding. No, me neither, but it’s tech that makes the thinner bezels possible and has previously been used on the Apple Watch.

iPhone 14 in yellow. Will the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus gain a 48-megapixel sensor?

There will be major camera improvements, Gurman says, for the 15 and 15 Plus. This tallies with reports that both will get 48-megapixel sensors, even if they are not quite the same sensors as on the Pro models.

The A16 chip currently exclusive to the 14 Pro and Pro Max will come to the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus.

Gurman told us this earlier but now says it again, that the Pro phones will have a titanium edge. He says now, “Apple has long sought to bring titanium to the iPhone and using the metal with recent watches was a test for bringing that material to its highest-volume device.”

This is new: the inside of the Pro phones will be redesigned to match the iPhone 14 which means it will be easier to repair. A quietly important change.

As the 15 and 15 Plus move to A16 chip, the Pro models “are moving to a 3-nanometer chip that is noticeably snappier.”

Gurman says, “I would look out for at least minor price increases across all four models outside of the US. I also wouldn’t rule out a price increase in the US — at least for some of the pro models — given the move to titanium and the costlier camera system on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.”

Exciting stuff, then. And not long until we see the phones themselves.